Listen--I respect your view, but I think you're wrong. I think many users are fair. I think most users are...lazy. And cheap. If there's an easy download that's free, they'll do it. If there is no easy download that's free, but an easy way to pay ,then many will take it (the iTunes effect). I think that there are many, many developers out there who don't care about intellectual property despite their avocation. An open source version would siphon a ton of sales, even if there's no downloadable binary (we *are* developers after all, we can get it built). And a downloadable pirated binary would become available anyway; heck, it *will* be available even as things stand now. There'll be a ton of demand.

I agree that users are lazy, I say so in my fairware introduction. It's a point I already address with fairware by making the "nag screen" easier to remove by contributing than by figuring how to "unfairly" remove it.

My experiment shows interesting results with my main application: All hours I invest in it are paid at a rate that is very similar to the money I was receiving when it was closed source, so empirical evidence seems to be on my side here. I wrote an article about that success at http://www.hardcoded.net/articles/fairw ... -works.htm

Praxis wrote:Perhaps most importantly: it's an issue of *control*. Jon, thank goodness, seems to be taking extreme care in how his creation is being crafted. Have you seen Notepad++ lately? It's good for what it is, and has tons of features, but it doesn't have people raving about it like TextMate (and now, Sublime Text). The way it goes right now, Jon has every bit of control over his interpretation of what a text editor ought to be like. Happily, I rather agree with him (and apparently most of you do, too).

I think you're making a mistake here by associating open source with "free for all" development where everyone adds his own little feature and we end up with an unmaintainable mess. It's very possible to maintain control of an open source application, all you have to do is to avoid accepting all code contributions.

Praxis wrote:I have every bit of confidence that should Jon not wish to make money from ST any more, he would open source it. No, I don't know him. He doesn't know me. I'm just not that concerned, though. I respect those who are concerned, but I just can't bring myself to tell someone to give away their work. You want to invest all that time and make it open source? Great. Just don't insist that others do the work and release it on your terms.

I don't insist that Jon releases his work as open source. It's his work, he does whatever he wants. I'm merely expressing my discomfort at the close-ness of ST's source, mentioning risks for the user and pointing to a past case where users were hurt by this (TextMate). You may do wishful thinking all you want, but it is still possible for this to happen with ST, a likely case being ST making a lot of money and Jon not wanting to work on it anymore. In this case, Jon has no incentive for either working on ST or open sourcing it, and this would hurt the users.

I bought ST2 and I would be willing to pay another 60$ if ST3 was made open source. The sporadic development and inadequate support is worrying. The text editor is such an essential tool for most of us and requires such a significant time investment that the uncertainty surrounding its future is unbearable.

Given the circumstances, I will not be spending any more money on ST without any reasonable assurances concerning its continued development.

And stop saying that you can't make money with open source software, that's a huge misconception.

You can make money by offering support for open source software, not by selling it. And in many cases support is more time consuming than coding.

Anyhow, it's a free world. You can use any other open source software; you are not stuck with sublime in any way. Not sure why every now and then some random dude pop up and claim that he/she sublime should be open source...

I wonder how many of you went to adobe or autodesk and ask to open source photoshop, 3dmax, etc...

The funny thing is that Sublime Text is basically already available for free. I know a bunch of people who have been using the unregistered version for a long time, either because they are cheap or they just can't afford to buy it (students).

How about not open-sourcing the program in the strict sense, but just releasing the source-code under a non-free license? For example, to use the source you must have a valid ST license, and you may not use the source in other programs, and may not redistribute it commercially? And you have to redistribute the source with the binaries if you make any changes (a bit like GPL)?

This would not expand the circle of those who are not paying for ST. People who don't care about Jon's income, or who can't afford buying ST, already pirate it, and will continue. People who do care, and who do obey licenses, would still pay for it.

Such a non-free license would still let you customize ST for personal use. Someone could implement the long-requested feature of file-type icons, for example. If a new feature is well-coded, then it could even be ported back into the main branch.